HP to transfer matured i-community project

IT major HP is gearing up to transfer its i-community project at Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh, near its border with Karnataka, to a yet to be floated transferee organisation by February, 2005.

The project has matured and HP's rural initiative/emerging market solutions will achieve returns in the next two years. The company has so far invested $2 million (around Rs 9 crore) in this initiative in India, primarily for the i-community programme.

The i-community project started two years ago involves taking the ICT infrastructure to the countryside by devising low cost solutions for both hardware and software which the villagers can use.

The technology incubator and hub at Kuppam set out to deliver programmes in education, healthcare and e-governance to develop low-cost products for emerging markets.

Maureen Conway, vice-president, emerging market solutions, said, "We are already in consultation with several state governments, agencies and national organisations to vend rural IT solutions developed at our i-community."

The company has 25 initiatives now in the fields of health, education, economic and social empowerment and government interface. It is betting on a low cost ink jet printer and a 4-in-1 personal computer (a single CPU facilitating four machine operations), that it is presently testing out, to yield rich dividends.

Another revenue model that HP is looking at is replicating the solutions in other rural areas in India and abroad. In fact, the company a few days ago showcased its i-community initiatives to IT secretaries from Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Assam and Uttaranchal.

As a result, officials said, expressions of interests were received from several states in India, besides China and Brazil, to implement the solutions.

Further, they added, the 4-in-1 personal computer "" tested and commercialised at HP's only other i-community project in South Africa "" is under the scanner of Russia and China.

HP officials added that despite the transfer of the particular project, Kuppam will be very much on HP's radar as a rural innovation hub.

HP's current plans are centred around extending the initiatives standardised at Kuppam to other areas on a commercial basis.